Sun, 28 Oct 2007

Cast of Characters

Board our cast of characters in Poughkeepsie (all names are
invented (except Poughkeepsie (nobody would invent that, even in a
work of fiction))):

Adam, a white guy trying to mind his own business.

Flores, a hispanic woman in her 40's sitting by the west window of the train.

Juan, a hispanic man in his 50's sitting opposite Flores by the east window.

Chica, a hispanic girl

Carlita, a hispanic woman in her 30's.

and me, your faithful author.

Act One

Flores and Juan strike up a conversation in Spanish. No problem
with that, except that, Flores being by one window and Juan by the
other, it's a pretty loud conversation. For me, it was moderately
annoying because I only understand about half the words in the
conversation because of my limited Spanish. Equally for me, it was
something that I tolerated because of course there are jerks
everywhere and you can't correct everybody's rudeness.

Obviously Adam didn't feel the same way. He stood up and loudly
asked Flores and Juan "If you're going to keep talking, why don't you
sit next to each other". Flores, who seems like a real loud-mouth no
matter what, immediately instructed Adam to mind his own business.
She loudly claimed that he was only objecting to their loud
conversation because it was in Spanish. Then, in a fit of
thoughtlessness, she accused Adam of being a racist. Heated words
followed and she announced that she didn't want to talk to him
anymore. Poor Juan followed her down the rathole, saying something
like "You're only so mad because you only speak one language"

Act Two

The issue seemed to be settled, when Flores got to her stop.
Obviously she felt she had to put Adam in his place, so she started
things again as she was walking off. Adam pretty much didn't give a
crap, until Chica, walking right behind Flores, spat at Adam. At that
point he demanded a policeman. I don't know what happened to whom,
but the upshot was that the doors of the train stayed shut for about
ten minutes, and when we rolled away, Flores and Chica were still
talking to the police.

The Denouement

So .... you now have all the evidence I have (or can remember; of
course eyewitnesses often disagree on exactly what happened). I
stewed about this for a while, and finally decided that the racist on
the train was .... Flores. Adam didn't say anything to her and Juan,
a hispanic pair, that he wouldn't have said to a pair of white people.
It was simply counter-factual to accuse him of racism. It was
prejudicial of her to interpret as racism his request, no matter how
boldly and perhaps even rudely stated.

So what's a racist? A racist is somebody whose prejudice is based
on race, just like a sexist is somebody whose prejudice is based on
gender. Racism knows no racial bounds, because prejudice is prejudice
no matter who is prejudiced against whom.

So what's the problem here? Is Flores only giving as good as she's
gotten from white folks? Maybe she's bringing emotional baggage to
this play in two acts? Maybe so, but that doesn't stop her from being
wrong. Where she's most wrong is in imputing racism to non-racially
motivated criticism. What she's effectively asking for is a racist
world. One in which everybody stops to consider race before
criticizing somebody. One where people only criticize people of their
own race.

Which brings us to Carlita. When Flores launched into Adam again,
Carlita jumped up and started to give Flores what-for. If f-bombs
were paintballs, Flores would have been black and blue and green and
red all over. "You're the reason why people don't like Mexicans."
Etc. Criticism from somebody of her own race she got in spades.

Nope, Flores didn't want to hear criticism from somebody of her own
race, either.